Sound ceases so quickly that he thinks he must be dead.

For an elongated second his mind cannot fathom it. He is in the middle of a last-ditch half-swing, sword arm weighted by the rising dead. His knees are about to give way, his legs mired in animated rot. He is being dragged down, too outnumbered, too exhausted to fight the tide they cannot possibly hope to hold back. One second the overwhelming cacophony of battle is bludgeoning itself against his eardrums, the next… nothing. Noise goes out of the world like light leaving the eyes of the dying: it flickers, and is gone. The void left in its wake is so absolute it seems like silence.

Jaime Lannister is still standing. His sword is still raised, his arm shaking with fatigue. The seething dead drift away like ashes on the wind, and they do not take him with them.

Alive. He's… alive.

This hits him at the same time as the realisation that the world is not devoid of sound. He can hear his own laboured breathing, the moans and screams of the injured, the sound of falling masonry, of the winter wind ripping around the crumbling turrets. There is noise, yet in the wake of the maelstrom they are muted, a kitten's mewls beside the burning blast of a dragon's roar.

He breathes out, the exhale shuddering into the cold. His first breath after the end mists in the air. In his second he turns his head. He's not even certain what he's looking for until he sees her. Ser Brienne of Tarth is pressed back against the walls of Winterfell as if she could hold them up herself, alone. Oathkeeper is raised to parry an attack that has failed to come, and there is blood dripping from beneath her gauntlet. There's blood on her face, too, streaking across her cheek, running from her forehead and her chin, her pale skin torn by blows too grotesque to imagine. But she's alive. He can see her breath, pooling in the air in short gasps, her strong face blank with shock.

He never expected to live, he realises. He never expected to see her again. Something beneath his ribcage expands and then shatters, a sensation so unexpected it staggers him where he stands. He thinks of Cersei, as he always does, as he always has. He looks at the Seven Kingdoms' newest knight, seeing in his mind the glittering beauty of his sister's form. He tries to imagine Cersei here instead of Brienne, tries to see her wielding Oathkeeper, wearing that armour, but he can't. Cersei despises dirt. Even as she birthed their children she wiped her thighs clean of blood. The idea of her standing her ground in the churned-up earth of Winterfell is ludicrous to the point of absurdity. Jaime has never known anyone with a heart more brutal than his sister's, but her ability to kill and maim is always at one remove. Brienne of Tarth… she'd never ask anyone to do something she would not be willing to do herself. Yet though he's watched her fight until she's up to the hilt in death, he's never seen her brutal. He knows that she never could be. Her heart is as tender as Cersei's is calcified, and it's a dichotomy that fascinates him.

He thinks, in a brief flash, of the one time he saw them together, on that terrible day when so very many things fell apart. The contrast between the two women was extreme and not only because of Brienne's height. Cersei's beauty is an opulence only a king can afford and before her Brienne looked like a peasant: a silk pennant beside a hessian flag. Yet something about Brienne had unsettled Cersei, and the dignity with which Brienne had taken her leave had levelled the field of whatever battle it was she had left in her wake. He thinks, suddenly, that Brienne's self in Cersei's form would make a queen fit for seven kingdoms and seven more still. Then he feels guilt, though it is not for his sister. It's Brienne he's thinking of now, he realises. The bravest woman he's ever known, the best knight he's ever fought beside. It's Brienne whose feelings he finds cannot abide to scorn.

She turns her head and as she does he realises he's still staring at her. It is but seconds since the miracle occurred and yet Jaime feels as if he's travelled across a universe. His perspective has shifted, gained an irrevocably different point of view. He's not standing beside Cersei any longer. In truth he thinks he's been shifting from her side for years. Perhaps since the day he could not bring himself to leave another woman alone to fight a bear with only a wooden sword. He thought he was fascinated by Brienne of Tarth's honour, her stature, the singular strength of her character. Now, for the first time, here beyond the end of the world, he wonders if, instead of fascination, it has always been something else.

"Jaime," she says, in a whisper as hoarse as the wind. She's never said his name without his honorific. We're not dead, is what he hears. We're not dead.

He nods, wordless, and finally moves. He drags up one leg and then the other, wades towards her through the exhaustion, through the remaining mire of death. When he's close enough he drops his sword so that it hits stone with a resounding clang and reaches out with his one hand. She stares at him, a line forming between her brows as he touches his fingers to her chin, wipes a thread of blood from her lip with his thumb. Her lips part, slightly, as if she might be drawing in an unbidden breath.

A noise comes behind them: a groan, a cough. Her gaze flicks past him, eyes instantly wide and anxious.

"Pod!" she shouts, hoarsely. "Pod! On your feet!"

Then she's moving, pushing him out of the way to get to her squire.

"We're alive," she's saying, as she drags the boy to his feet. "Pod, we're alive!"

Jaime doesn't turn, not yet. He's still taking it in.

They're alive.

They're both alive.

[END]